Breakdown of Avia dicit amicitiam bonam vitam laetiorem facere.
Questions & Answers about Avia dicit amicitiam bonam vitam laetiorem facere.
Because after dicit, Latin is using an indirect statement.
In this construction:
- the verb of the reported statement goes into the infinitive
- the subject of that infinitive goes into the accusative
So the direct statement would be:
- Amicitia bona vitam laetiorem facit
But after dicit, it becomes:
- amicitiam bonam vitam laetiorem facere
That is a very common Latin pattern after verbs like say, think, know, hear, and believe.
There are two different subjects, one for each verbal idea:
- Avia is the subject of dicit
- amicitiam bonam is the subject of facere
So avia is the one doing the saying, but amicitiam bonam is the thing that is said to make life happier.
This is one of the big things to get used to in Latin indirect statement: the subject of the infinitive is often not nominative.
Because in an , the subject of the infinitive is put in the , not the nominative.